I thought books would shield me from the world, but perhaps they led me astray.

I live in the light and shadow of my death, certain that each moment is either to be felt most vividly or all self lost in flow. So I move between the two states, entirely here or wholly absent, leaving no trace on the world.

There’s the worlds inside and out, and ever since I can remember I’ve tried to master the inner while neglecting the latter, because it never seemed real to me, not as real as the world that I felt.

I embrace Daoist / Zen simplicity through material and mental poverty, my natural inclinations, rather any great study of the topic. To reduce requirements and encumbrances, to get lost in the moment, to enjoy a cup of tea, a glass of water, just breathing in and out, in and out, and feeling the joy from within.

In this way I cut myself off from the world.

We spend time together but don't talk about our poverty and failure, lack of property, status and hope, even though it obsesses us and impacts every aspect of our lives.

This is just how things are, or seem to be, and they will never change.

The feeling is the thing, and I get as much pleasure from a good stretch as others find in Paris, as easily satisfied as a tree.

You think it'll be OK, and then remember all the stories of madness, suicide, ruin and despair that happened to real people, like yourself, and there's no reason not to imagine a terrible end of your own, no reason for it not to really happen.

And at the same time, over the same years, I become bitter, celebrating the losses of others as some great leveller, while still nurturing a fantasy that something will change for the better in my own life, that in the end it turns out well for us all.

I know nothing, can do nothing, help no one, and can't explain what I did with my life.

Another morning waking up with a sore head and wondering how much is left in the bottle, if this can really last forever.

There's a terrible night, after an uneasy evening of ruminating on the sting of poverty and the mockery of the rich, the not even rich, the middle class, the working class who actually worked, unlike me, and then a real storm, with the fear of a ruined roof, more damage to the wood, the dripping into buckets, and nightmares, in and out of sleep, of floods and loss and shame, knowing in the waking hours between the sleeps that the next day will be broken, tired and performing badly, falling into bad habits, making it all worse.

But then I wake up and nothing is broken, I perform well, and the misery gives up to mystery and then the sun starts to set and I'm outside with a beer, some music, my favorite pen, and a bunch of index cards, and I'm breathing deeply, breathing well, as the planet turns and my town rolls away from the sun in a spectacular show, and I forget it all and tap into something sacred yet literally quotidian.

I'm alive, and the real magic, now as ever, takes place inside my head. There's nothing to me beyond me. My world is my world, it lives and dies with me.

I drink more beer, write on the cards, enjoy the hunger and the fire.

Today has been another exceptional day for an insignificant man who lives on the edge of collapse.